With readline, how am I supposed to input a digit N times using numeric arguments?

Readline has the so-called 'numeric arguments' that repeats the following command several times, e.g. M-5 a will insert aaaaa. But M-5 9 won't insert 99999. Is there any way to achieve this except typing it literally?

EDIT: I mean the GNU Readline library.

You can use verbatim insert (Ctrl+V): M-5 C-v 9 will insert "99999".